Step 1

You'll need to set up your web space account through your Internet Service Provider. The best way to go about this is to go to your ISP's website and look at their "member services". There will likely be a link to an online form that you fill out and send to your ISP. Some ISP's have an automated system that takes care of this for you and your webspace is opened immediately. Some ISP's do it manually and will send you an email when your space is opened. If you can't find the information on how to open your web space, call your ISP's Customer Service line and ask them to help. To see a good example, take a look at my ISP's page on opening a webspace account at http://powerlink.adelphia.net/support/hosting/hosting_faq.html If for some reason your ISP doesn't offer you any webspace with your account, you are getting hosed. Find a new ISP, quick.

Step 2

Now that your webspace is open, you'll need an FTP device to get your pics from your computer to your webspace. You can download a number of free FTP clients at http://www.cnet.com. I use WS_FTP 95 LE. It's old, simple, and very easy to learn and use. Just search FTP at cnet.com and pick the most popular client. Download it and fire it up.

Step 3

Now you'll have to set your FTP program up with your web space account information. That information should also be given to you by your ISP. If they haven't already told you what you need to know, call them and ask. They will likely send you to their online tutorial. If they won't help, or if they say they don't know, get yourself a new ISP IMMEDIATELY. You can see an excellent example of "How to use an FTP client at http://powerlink.adelphia.net/support/hosting/ws_ftp/index.html.

Step 4

Understand what you are doing before going hog-wild!!! What happens once you've learned how to use FTP is this... Your image is loaded onto your ISP's server. When it gets there, it gets an address. It'll be something like http://home.adelphia.net/~shilala/ysun1.jpg. The first part of the address is your ISP's web address. The second is the name that is on your account, it's the same one you use for your email, normally. The third part is the name of your file as you have saved it on your computer.
Every picture that you view on the web has a specific address. You can see an example by using your mouse to scroll over a picture, right click it, choose properties, and look at the line with the header "Address:(URL)". That is that images place in space, and the name is the target. This is very important in the next step. Take note that picture URL's are CASE SENSITIVE.

Step 5

Now it's time to place your pictures in your auction. If you do this initially, you can just type in your picture's address in the listing page where it says "Picture URL". Once again, and I can't stress this enough, pictures are CASE SENSITIVE. The best way to make sure that you have the URL exactly right is to go to your web space, pull up the picture from your index page, and copy and paste the url to "Picture URL" line. If you want to add pics to your auction that is already running, you'll need to follow the link at the bottom of any eggbid page to your "Personal Page". Sign in, choose the link for "Edit your auction Items", choose the particular auction you want to edit, then fill in the "Picture URL line". Save your changes, then check your auction.

Some tips...

If you're going to play with pics on the web, you need to learn your camera, scanner, and your picture editing software. If your picture files are too big, they'll take forever to load, and people will just keep on going. All your work is for naught.

Put your best picture forward. Your picture doesn't have to be an award winner, but it does need to show your items' fine points. If you can't tell if the bird you're buying has eyes or if the tail is chopped off, the picture might just not be very effective. USE PROPER LIGHTING or just haul your item outside to take your pics. That's what I do, it takes away the "Graininess" from your pics.

Get as close to your object as you can. If your chicken is in the middle of a pic that shows 30 acres of your backyard, it's gonna be about 1/16th of an inch tall on people's screens. Not very effective either.

That said, any pic is usually better than no pic.

Use a good image editor. Adode Photodeluxe Home Edition 3.0 is what I use for auction pics because it's so fast and easy. It's simple to use, easy to operate and learn, and it's so cheap that it's nearly free. You can find a copy at ebay for under 10 bucks.